Tipo (Classic) New Tipo (old model!)

bluejohn125 said:

as such there's no reason it couldn't just be rebuilt / refreshed like folks used to do...

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Tis possible, but I have found before it can quickly get rather expensive...it's a 1.6. Funnily enough, back in the day my brother's 1.6 Teapot engine also had some serious issues... with a similar mileage, 65k. Will have to find a way. Here's an update on some other progress meantime...

The sunroof had been immoveable. I swapped the motor out of the red one and using the emergency key, which always makes me laugh, was now able to turn the spindle and was pleased that the sunroof opened ok, with just a little shower of rust.









With this proof of concept lol I greased the moving parts, replaced the broken white clips that push the blind back and then tried motorised operation - which was also ok.

Then to the heating system which has never worked. Having swapped in the resistor and fan from the red Tipo, the blower worked. The terrible state of the coolant had clearly killed the thermostat, so both were replaced.











The liberty has cables controlling the temp. and flaps as usual, but the fan switch is electric. White securing clips that kept the cables in tension had cracked however, meaning the dials only worked one way! Without looting the red car's cables, this would have been difficult to fix. I also lubricated all the moving control parts behind the facia. The upshot of this work was that the engine now gets to temp, there is air and heating and there is less strain on the dials.

I saw the loom had a spare plug for the headlamp washer pump and hoped I could reinstate this feature on the silver car using bits from the Tipo TD. There was no power to it though. Checking this feature out it turned out to be rather more complicated with various fuses, wiring and a relay which were never fitted to the silver one and almost impossible to recover from the red one, so I gave up.











Next task was to strip all black underseal applied over previous floor and sill welding, which tends to fail and hide rust, and repaint this with epoxy mastic, welding up three little holes in the process.

The wheels are brava ones I've had powder-coated for this teapot, with a fractionally wider offset than the originals.

Great progress with all that welding and the MOT.. and yes the coolant was even more disgusting than I'd imagined. Probably giving it another flush (with additive) and refresh after a year or so assuming all else is well with the car.

It seems you've got all the classic sill decay that I've encountered, but I'm confident you can handle it. You seem to have done a great job refurbing those wheels, I've just recently finished redoing mine manually which was a major slog (5 wheels..). I'll fit them soon, just wearing out the last of my old current all-season tyres. Incidentally which tyre size did you go for... standard skinny 165/65 or wider Brava-style 175/65? I'm assuming 14" wheels not 13"...

Any update on the low oil pressure and general engine health? I'm pretty sure you could easily transplant an earlier Brava / Bravo 1.6 16V... same block and gearbox (I think), and still with fairly simple ECU connections etc.

Enjoy your Tipo, you deserve it.

bluejohn125 said:

I've just recently finished redoing mine manually which was a major slog (5 wheels..). I'll fit them soon, just wearing out the last of my old current all-season tyres. Incidentally which tyre size did you go for... standard skinny 165/65 or wider Brava-style 175/65? I'm assuming 14" wheels not 13"...

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Cheers BlueJohn - and for your update. That sounds like hard work... it's a slog but we try to get there, or somewhere! Like you say I went from 175 to 185 width on the diesel, all good, but this one I've stayed at 165 (14"). They look rather narrow but I think you have previously tended to advise keeping the rolling weight down?

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the Brava/o engine. As this engine is going to have to come out and I cannot think it will be anything less than a new crankshaft at the least...

Any verdict on the engine? Classic bottom end knocking or any clues to the actual issues?

The idea of putting the diesel lump in is rather appealing... a nice 2 fingers to the zealots who are now trying to instantly eradicate any diesel pre-Euro6! Good to remind them what was perfectly acceptable and reasonable 15-odd years ago.

Personally I like the idea of the Brava 16V.. the 1.6 Tipo always was disappointing in terms of power output and a more modern, sporty engine would make the car an enjoyable "sleeper", especially with those standard wheeltrims! :slayer:

bluejohn125 said:

Any verdict on the engine? Classic bottom end knocking or any clues to the actual issues?

The idea of putting the diesel lump in is rather appealing

Personally I like the idea of the Brava 16V

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It must the crankshaft related bearings - given the low oil pressure. Perhaps the car was ragged around with no oil at some point. I am rather surprised by the willingness of the 1.6, given it's feeble statistics, but maybe this is just the complete lack of resistance in the bearings !

My replacement diesel engine only had 50k on it however it looked a big job to rewire and re-plumb, and it was an unwieldy lump to move about. As such the red Tipo has sadly ended its days, this is all that's left, for partial reuse on the silver one...



With a 16v in the tipo, it might be wise to secure the trims with cable ties...

It's probably time for some updates on this car. In 2017, with a house move from Scotland back to England imminent, not knowing how receptive Cheshire would be to the sound of a grinder on Sunday mornings, I cut off some more parts I knew still to be rusty like the rear boot edge.



With the temperature control on the car sorted, the car promptly failed its MOT on emissions. And so in the last days of its previous MOT, with every possession already moved, the Tipo was the last item I needed to collect from Scotland.

I figured if I could travel by night and keep speed down with plenty of rests, it might make it, mindful of undiagnosed low oil pressure and emission issues. So it proved, the solitary Teapot maintaining around 50mph down the lonely A7, the A6 over Shap, with a flicker of the oil light being the prompt for stops to cool the engine down. I risked the M6 after Preston and finally the M56 and we got there. Not the most relaxing of drives but it held up.

With the Winter over and Summer starting I began to tackle the rot at the back of the car.








I used parts of the fabrications I had originally welded to my TD which I cut off before it was scrapped.

The offside corner took a lot of fitting as the panel needed to go a long way under the inner wheel arch where the rot had spread. This will also need the replacement wing.









The nearside corner required sheets on every plane to be repaired but I was able to avoid taking the the wing off.

Much of the valance was rotten and the strengthening beam seems to be a water trap.

With that done and the new mountings for the bumper in the right place, I reassembled the back of the Tipo and put the welder away for hopefully the last time for the time being.

In terms of the next steps, I will need to take the engine out when the weather gets better. It's not going to be a nice sight, I'm expecting the head gasket has failed, allowing coolant and oil to mix and at least the crankshaft bearings to be shot.

In the meantime if you are still driving a Tipo I came across a surprising aftermarket product which, had it been fitted originally would have saved a whole lot of bother, a rear wheel arch liner.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/discount_ms

This is the seller, it avoids the headache of water and salt collecting behind the fuel filler and in the seams. At one time I had tried an Alfa 145 liner, with the metal arch pressings being the same I figured it might fit, but it was too small. This product fits great, I've just used 3 or so cable ties on each side for security.

It's probably time to update this thread as recent weeks permitted a resumption of work. Firstly, late last year after finishing all the welding I chanced an MOT. Unfortunately during the emissions test, the interior filled with coolant from the matrix area. Removing the carpet to dry it out revealed that the old outer floorpan repairs had been welded over the top of the rusty panels. This won't last, so it needed the old metal cutting back and a good tidy up. And more welding...

A package from Italy is always a treat so here is a new correct pattern bumper in the packaging as the old one in the middle was badly cracked and the TD bumper is incorrect. However the new one needed the moulded fog light apertures cutting out.

Next the engine now has to come out as there is coolant in the oil and the crankshaft seems to be rattling. After tackling rusty bolts on the the suspension and taking the head off the engine is ready to come out. There doesn't seem to have been much oil in the gearbox either. What maintenance regime was this car subjected to lol, it couldn't be much worse ! :shakehead:

Just re-read this whole thread - fantastic thread! You had far more rot in your car than I had in my J plate Sedicivalvole which so far has only had minor repairs mainly to the rear bumper/rear arches area and behind the front struts. Luck of the draw i suppose.

Will be great when its done. MIKE

tipomike said:

Just re-read this whole thread - fantastic thread! You had far more rot in your car than I had in my J plate Sedicivalvole which so far has only had minor repairs mainly to the rear bumper/rear arches area and behind the front struts. Luck of the draw i suppose.

Will be great when its done. MIKE

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Thanks for your encouragement Mike, great! Spurred me on to do more this week. If J... MDO has mainly lived in the south it's a great start in life, as the roads get salted less days a year, the less exposure the better, however I think the MK1 was better finished...

So finally here is the venerable old Lampredi 1581 unit on the floor to see what has gone wrong. The heavy item behind is the aircon compressor.

The gaskets look ok, seems to be much gunge perhaps this was an attempt to bung some gasket seal in to cure the oil/coolant mixing but it shows that it blocks up holes at random. The inside of the head has lost some metal, possibly this is where the mixing is taking place. As I suspected the crankshaft bearings don't look too good with scoring marks, not sure if this is due to grit, overheating or lack of oil.

I hope this can be weld-repaired, but not with a MIG

Sadly I think that engine is firked... seems like classic abuse overheating lack of oil etc.

I think you're looking at a transplant realistically... I’d took for a scrapper mk1 Punto 90 1.6 with MPI.... same engine but efficient fuelling, should’nt be too hard for you to wire in if you’be got all the bits.

Great project though..